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End Days for Tuvalu
Arthur Stamoulis
 If
you're like most people, you probably think the "tv" in GreenWorks.tv
and similar web addresses stands for television. In truth, however,
dot-tv actually refers to Tuvalu, a remote island nation in the Pacific
Ocean 400 miles north of Fiji.
Although perhaps best known to Americans as the home of dot-tv, Tuvalu has spent the past ten years making its presence known in international political circles as one of the leading government voices against global warming. Tuvalu is taking an active stance against climate change for good reason. Made up of nine extremely narrow atolls totaling just 26 square kilometers in land mass, Tuvalu is likely the first nation to be completely wiped off the map due to rising sea levels and stormy weather.
A new phenomenon is now becoming frighteningly common in Tuvalu. Whenever a particularly big storm hits, many parts of the country become completely submerged by water during high tides. More than just a sign of things to come, the seawater from this flooding leaves salt in the soil, making the subsistence farming that many Tuvaluans depend on increasingly difficult. Some families have taken to growing their crops in metal buckets, rather than in the ground. But things could get worse still.
Many climate change experts believe that Tuvalu will be completely uninhabitable in less than a generation. Thus far, most industrialized nations have offered Tuvalu little in the way of hope, at best saying they may allow some of its citizens refugee status if they are forced to evacuate. Most Tuvaluans are less-than-happy with this "solution," and point out that the large number of refugees coming from their country and the dozen other low-lying nations that are at risk of disappearing are bound to create some serious political problems in the not-to-distant future.
Tuvalu itself is attempting to stem the tide of global warming in two major ways. First, it is investing considerable resources into renewable energy, hoping to completely halt the use of diesel in Tuvalu altogether. Second, it is planning to take legal action against the United States and Australian governments in the International Court of Justice and is suing corporations like Exxon/Mobil, BP and Chevron in domestic courts for their leading roles in global warming.
While many commentators feel that taking on powerful nations and corporations could end up hurting Tuvalu politically, most also agree that without first-world nations implementing major and immediate emissions-reduction policies, nations like Tuvalu have no hope of surviving at all.
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